The Working Class with Chocolate
As chocolate spread across the Old World, it was initially difficult to obtain. The combination of the substance's rarity and the stimulating effects experienced by cacao drinkers elevated chocolate to a marker of prestige in some places, such as France. Therefore, it was often left out of the hands of the lower and working classes. However, a recurring theme that we noticed in our data collection was depictions of servants or enslaved people preparing, harvesting, or serving chocolate. These portrayals further reified the high class and desirable nature of what chocolate had become. To drink chocolate was to live luxuriously, while the preparation behind it signified a working class or even slave identity.
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- Art Gallery Rosie Abraham